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Swift as the wind, the ex-ninja ran through the streets of Salem, entering a black forest. He dashed through the woods, graceful as a cheetah, until he saw a light ahead. He slowed down and expertly hid in a tree, silent as a thought. With the aid of his acute sense of hearing, he listened to the Mafia members discussing their future plans of terror and murder. The Spy clenched his hands, knowing that he could kill a man in thirty five different ways... but he couldn't. This was a group of armed men, and he was merely a weaponless man with some knowledge on killing. No - it would be better to let the town know who the perpetrators are, so that they could dispose of them instead.

In the daytime, those who he expected to die were lying on the ground, dispatched, in front of their houses. The Spy walked around, listening to everybody talk, knowing what everyone was whispering about. Using this information, he was able to judge who sounded like who... and who was part of the Mafia. (credit)


Mechanics[]

  • You will receive the amount of Mafia and/or Coven who visit certain people each Night. The order is randomized.
  • You are also able to "bug" a person each Night, which reveals any direct actions against them, such as attacks, roleblocks, transports, etc. Investigative actions are not shown, such as from a Sheriff or Consigliere.
    • Spies who bug a Hypnotist's target will see the false messages the Hypnotist sends to a player.
    • While tracking Mafia and/or Coven visits is not counted as a visit, Bugging a player counts as you visiting them.
      • By that logic, Spies will indeed trigger the Trapper's Trap if they bug the trapped person. Bear this in mind when weighing the pros and cons of bugging.
      • Spies can also be attacked by a Veteran or Medusa, should they bug them.
  • If you are controlled, you will bug the controller's target. The controller will get the Mafia and/or Coven visits along with feedback from the bug.
  • You will not be able to see who the Coven and/or Mafia visit if you are jailed.
  • If you are role blocked/jailed or controlled, you will not receive the results of your bug or the visits.
  • The bug will fail if your target is jailed. You will know that your target was jailed. You will still see visits.
  • Transporters will only change your bug target. If you bug A, and if a Transporter swaps A and B, you will receive bug information from player B.
  • Your ability to see Mafia/Coven visits are unaffected by Transporters and will always display who the Mafia or Coven actually visit that Night: if Mafia or Coven visits A, you will see a visit on A, and if a Transporter swaps A and B, you will see Mafia or Coven visit B.
  • If you die, you will still receive your results for that Night, including bugs and visits, despite having the same priority as an Amnesiac.

Bugging Messages[]

When a Spy uses their Night ability to bug someone, they'll see messages from the following list for appropriate events:

Spy Bug Messages 
  • Your target was transported to another location.
  • Someone occupied your target's night. They were role blocked!
  • Someone threatened to reveal your target's secrets. They were blackmailed!
  • Your target was doused in gas!A
  • Your target has cleaned the gasoline off of themself.A
  • Your target was attacked but someone fought off their attacker!
  • Your target was attacked but someone nursed them back to health!
  • Your target was attacked by a member of the Mafia!
  • Your target was attacked by a Serial Killer!
  • Your target was shot by a Vigilante!
  • Your target was set on fire by an Arsonist!
  • Your target was shot by the Veteran they visited!
  • Your target was killed protecting someone!
  • Your target's target was attacked last night!D
  • Your target was murdered by the Serial Killer they visited!
  • A Bodyguard attacked your target but someone nursed them back to health!
  • A Bodyguard attacked your target but someone fought them off!
  • Your target was killed by a Bodyguard!
  • Someone attacked your target but their defense was too strong!
  • Someone tried to role block your target but they were immune!
  • Your target was controlled by a Witch!
  • A Witch tried to control your target but they were immune.
  • Your target was haunted by the Jester and committed suicide!
  • Your target was attacked but their bulletproof vest saved them!
  • Someone tried to attack your alert target and failed!Ve
  • Your target shot themselves over the guilt of killing a town member!Vi
  • Someone role blocked your target, so your target attacked them!SK
  • Your target was killed by the Serial Killer they jailed.J
  • Your target was attacked by a Werewolf!
  • Someone role blocked your target so they stayed at home.WW
  • Your target was staked by a Vampire Hunter!Va
  • Your target was staked by the Vampire Hunter they visited!Va
  • Your target staked the Vampire that attacked them!VH
  • Your target was attacked by a Vampire!

A This confirms your target as an Arsonist.
D This confirms your target as a Doctor.
J This confirms your target as a Jailor.
SK This confirms your target as a Serial Killer.
Ve This confirms your target as a Veteran.
VH This comfirms your target as a Vampire Hunter.
Va This confirms your target as a Vampire.
Vi This confirms your target as a Vigilante.
WW This confirms your target as a Werewolf.

Coven Expansion Spy Bug Messages 
  • Your target was attacked by a Crusader!
  • Your target was attacked but someone protected them!
  • Your target was attacked by Pestilence!
  • Your target was attacked by the Juggernaut!
  • Your target was attacked but their Guardian Angel saved them!
  • Your target was attacked by a Pirate!
  • Your target's life force was drained by the Coven Leader!
  • Your target was attacked by a Hex Master!
  • Your target was attacked by a Necromancer!
  • Someone tried to poison your target but someone fought them off!
  • Your target was poisoned but someone nursed them back to health!
  • Your target was poisoned. They will die tomorrow unless they are cured!
  • Your target died to poison!
  • Your target was cured of poison!
  • Your target was poisoned. They will die tomorrow!
  • Your target was turned to stone.
  • Your target was attacked but a trap saved them!
  • Your target was attacked by a Potion Master!
  • Your target jailed Pestilence and was obliterated.J
  • A trap attacked your target but someone nursed them back to health!

J This confirms your target as a Jailor.


Strategy[]

  • When the Mafia has a Blackmailer, you should try to figure out why the Mafia is trying to keep the blackmailed person quiet. Maybe they blamed the Mafia, and you don't have to reveal yourself as a Spy to point out that someone is blackmailed since you can just say that the person is being quiet and ask them to vote for you if they are blackmailed. Then tell everyone what they said before they were blackmailed.
    • Doing this does carry some risk though, as some experienced Townies may call you out on suspicion of being a Blackmailer, as Blackmailers will often accuse their own target, pointing out how quiet they've been. On top of that, Spy is a common Blackmailer claim, so be wary.
  • As a Spy, your bugs can confirm the existence of many roles, including Arsonists, Serial Killers, and Vampires. Any messages that correspond to one of these roles should be pointed out to the Town immediately.
  • If a Jester is lynched, you should keep track of who whispered to the Jester before they were lynched. If the Jester killed a Townie, then there's a high chance the person is evil.
  • Posting daily can help, as Spy usually has a long Last Will and gives useful information for claims. This can benefit by confirming yourself and narrowing down who is evil (such as a Consort claiming they are an Escort). Your detailed Last Will probably won't fit if you try to post it all at once.
  • Always keep a detailed Last Will, noting down every Night's Mafia and Coven visits. While this is true for any role, the significance of a Night's visits often isn't obvious until later in the game. It might be tempting to summarize it into a list of who has/hasn't been visited or a possible number of Mafia, but knowing the precise visits and what Night they occurred on can be valuable for catching a Consort or Consigliere, or for interpreting the Last Wills of other players.
  • If you find someone who was controlled by a Witch and who didn't claim that they were controlled, the player is most likely an evil role who doesn't want to out the Witch.
    • A rare strategy you could do is claim to be a Witch by whispering to them that you had controlled them. Most evil roles trust a Witch claim, so if the evil role is a member of the Mafia, the player may tell you who the rest of the Mafia are.
  • If someone is visited by the Mafia or Coven, and the next Day another person claims to be an Investigator with information about them, it may indicate that they're actually an evil (possibly a Consigliere or Potion Master) using information from that visit to deduce their role. Keep in mind that if they're accusing their target of being evil or immune, that accusation may still be correct, since both the Coven and the Mafia have reasons to want to eliminate rival evils.

Revealing[]

  • If you are unable to gather a lot of information, but still have some information to contribute, a good time to reveal yourself as a Spy is when you know there are a lot of high priority roles, as lots of other roles at this point are a higher priority to kill than the Spy. Otherwise, you should reveal yourself when you have some good information to contribute with, for example, if you know who one of the members of the Mafia/Coven is.
    • However, you could still become a high priority target anyway as you can catch a Consigliere/Necromancer by their visits and discredit false info.
  • You should try to counter an unlikely Spy claim, as they could be a Blackmailer. Spy is a common claim for members of the Mafia and Coven as it is easy to fake for them.
    • This doesn't apply as much to certain Coven Custom role lists or Coven All Any, as members of the Mafia or Coven can only see who their own faction visits, although the actions of the Coven are generally more obvious. Anyone who is seen to be falsely claiming Spy is usually either a member of the Mafia or a Jester, and a Vigilante or Jailor should kill them.

Mafia/Coven Visits[]

  • Make sure to keep track of who the Mafia and Coven visit at Night, in most cases the visited target will not be a member of the Mafia/Coven. You can use this information to narrow down who could be a member of the Mafia/Coven. However, a Witch/Coven Leader or a Transporter can make a member of the Mafia visit another. A Disguiser/Potion Master could also be disguising/healing a member of the Mafia/Coven so watch out for this. If an Amnesiac remembers that they were a member of the Mafia/Coven, they might be among the targets too. Late game, you can also completely confirm a Townie if all neutrals are dead by recording their visits.
  • Late game, it may be a good idea to look back in your will and see the Mafia/Coven visits. Compare them to the currently alive players, you can narrow down who is Mafia/Coven by looking at visits. If you see some players that were never visited by Mafia or Coven, they are most likely one themselves.
  • If no targets are visited at all, it is very likely that the Godfather or Mafioso was in jail or role blocked. In modes where the number of Mafia can vary significantly, such as All Any, it can also indicate that the Mafia are all dead.
  • If a target is visited repeatedly but is not blackmailed or role blocked, the Mafia might have a Disguiser.
  • If none of the targets die, it is possible that one of the targets was attacked and either had a higher Defense value than said attacker's Attack value or was healed by a Doctor. This is especially true if a target was visited by multiple members of the Mafia (the second being a Forger or Janitor).
  • Bear in mind, however, that a common mistake among novice Spies is to make broad assumptions based on visitations, such as assuming one or more of the targets visited has a naturally high defense or assuming that a Mafia member visited a Medusa based on the change in the number of visits.
    • Calling these out early on can be detrimental for two reasons: if they actually did visit a Neutral Killing, the Spy is less likely to be believed and may end up providing a valuable distraction for the Mafia or Coven. On the other hand, if the target was innocent and merely protected, it would expose both that innocent player and their protector.
    • Furthermore, now that Spy is easy for any Mafia or Coven member to fake, these call outs can cast suspicion upon the Spy themselves. This can be effective if the Spy doesn't have a proper Last Will, or just calls out someone without giving the full story. This can result in a Jailor or Vigilante killing the Spy, dealing a huge blow to Town in the process.
  • Keep track of who the Mafia visit at Night and use the process of elimination to find who the members of the Mafia are. Be aware, however, that Transporters, Witches, and Disguisers can mess with your results.
  • You can distinguish between Escort and Consort claims by checking to see if the people who were role-blocked were visited by the Mafia on those Nights. Consorts cannot easily lie about their visits since each one produces a message; but they can easily claim Escort if you're not there to catch them or they're Disguised.
  • Your list of visits can be extremely effective in combination with a Lookout or Tracker, allowing you to narrow down possible Mafia and Coven members even further:
    • If the Mafia or Coven didn't visit the Lookout's target or whoever the Tracker's target visited, then those visitors cannot be Mafia or Coven, respectively.
    • If the Mafia or Coven did visit that target, then it puts any visitors under suspicion. However, for the Tracker, remember that there may be other visitors you didn't see who could be the actual Mafia or Coven.
  • You can also use the pattern of visits to figure out the role(s) of the Random Mafia member(s).
    • For example, if one person is visited two times, there is likely a Forger or Janitor in play. If they don't die, they may be healed or have a higher Defense value than the attacker's Attack value. Framers can also visit the same target to try to trick you.
    • If one person is visited and not killed, then visited and killed, this may point to the presence of a Consigliere. They would have investigated the person, shared their role, and then the Godfather or Mafioso would have decided to kill them. Keep this in mind especially if they are an important Town role, such as Jailor or Mayor, or one that could have found out members of the Mafia, such as Investigator or Lookout.
    • If one person is being visited repeatedly, this could indicate a Disguiser, or possibly a Consort who is intent on roleblocking one person. If the victim is claiming role-blocked, it is most likely a Consort.
      • Note however, that you cannot see a Disguiser who has Disguised themselves since it hides both their visits from you.
  • If someone is visited once by Coven and did not die or claim controlled/Poisoned, there could be a Potion Master or Hex Master.
    • If the Coven visit a deceased target at night, you can be certain that Necromancer is in play.
  • Your abilities can be very useful for finding Pestilence.
    • Once Pestilence has appeared, any further visits without an associated Mafia or Coven death indicate that the person who was visited is not Pestilence.
    • Conversely, if there's a Mafia or Coven death the next morning, then any visits by Mafia or Coven may indicate they visited Pestilence, though you also have to consider the possibility that they were visited by Pestilence or visited Pestilence's target.
    • When Pestilence is active, you should stop bugging, since the benefits of that half of your abilities are too minor to be worth the risk of exposing you to death to Pestilence's rampage or to visiting them directly.

Bugging[]

  • With the 'bug' ability, you can now know if someone is lying about what happened to them. You can also find out if someone is immune or whether they were protected by a vest.
  • Generally speaking, you should bug people who you suspect will lie about or conceal what happened to them at Night - in other words, potentially evil roles. There's usually little point in bugging a confirmed Town role, who will reveal what happened to them at Night anyway.
    • However, one benefit to bugging Town is that you can use what you see to confirm yourself. For this reason, it's sometimes useful to choose targets the way a Lookout would, and visit whoever you think is most likely to be visited and have an 'exciting' Night in general; that will give you the information you can later use to confirm that you're a Spy.
  • Remember that some of the information you can gather with bugging is redundant with the information you retrieve from your ability to see Mafia and Coven visits:
    • If someone is repeatedly acting blackmailed, you could theoretically use your bugging to confirm this; however, most of the time you will already know they're telling the truth due to the Mafia visits (unless there's a Disguiser).
  • There are a few specific messages you can see that are much more important than others and worth actively looking for by targeting people who are likely to receive them. These are:
    • The unique messages an Escort, Consort, or Jailor gets when killed by a Serial Killer or (for the Jailor only) a Pestilence they targeted; this will tell you with certainty whether the person they targeted was a Serial Killer or not if they are killed by one. For this reason, it's worthwhile to focus on bugging anyone who claims those roles. Remember, if you're watching them and do not see the unique message when they die to a Serial Killer, that means their target was not a Serial Killer; you will probably have to speak up to save them.
    • If you target a Serial Killer who gets role-blocked, you'll receive a special message telling you that they attacked their role-blocker (which instantly outs them as a Serial Killer.) For this reason, it can be useful to watch possible Serial Killers.
    • If your target has Defense, you'll receive a message when they're attacked. For this reason, it's worth watching people you suspect of having Defense.
      • Note that while you can make some deductions about immunity with by watching your Mafia and Coven visit reports on a Night when they fail to kill, actually bugging a target lets you distinguish between bulletproof vests, healing, and persistent immunity.
        • Also note that a Hypnotist could be sending a fake heal message to confirm themselves to you and their target if the Mafia fails to kill (the same applies to a lesser extent with the Potion Master).
    • If you watch an Arsonist who cleans themselves, you'll receive a message stating this. This is fairly rare and typically only happens in games with multiple Arsonists, but it's a reason to watch potential Arsonists in any game that seems to have more than one. Similarly, you will only receive the message that your target was doused if they are an Arsonist themselves.
    • The "Control Immunity" message is seen by the Transporter, Retributionist, Potion Master, Necromancer, Pirate and Pestilence. Remember that if you see it and the transportation message, an actual Transporter may have transported your target with themselves. Conversely, a message that your target was successfully controlled means they cannot be any role on that list.
    • The "Roleblock Immunity" message is only seen by a few roles: Escort, Consort, Transporter, Retributionist, Veteran, Pirate, Pestilence, Coven Leader/Witch, and Necromancer. If you see it, your target is one of the roles on that list. Of course, if it was Pestilence, you will die unless healed.
      • This can be done to try to confirm certain claims or roles that are somewhat easy to claim such as Retributionist.
    • A message that your target was successfully role-blocked means that they cannot be any of the roles with immunity, nor can they be a Serial Killer or (on a Full Moon Night) a Werewolf since those have unique messages.
    • You can tell if the target was transported. This can be vital to preventing mislynches. Remember that if you see that message, it means that your target was changed by the Transporter, too; for instance, if you see that message and an immunity message, it means the Transporter's other target is immune, not the person you intended to target. Keep in mind a Hypnotist can generate a transport message also, potentially leading you to false conclusions.
    • If you manage to catch the message of: "Someone role blocked your target so they stayed at home." then it means your target is a Werewolf, as this is a specific message. However, you will die due to visiting them, unless you are protected in some way.
    • When someone you're bugging is attacked, you can see whether they were saved by a vest or by permanent immunity. For this reason, it can be valuable to bug Survivor claims; if they are attacked, you'll immediately know whether they're actually a Survivor or not. While the behavior of Survivors can be unpredictable, speaking up to confirm them or save their lives can often convince them to side with the Town, and will at least prevent other Town members from wasting time pursuing them.
    • The "Your target's target was attacked last Night!" message is unique to the Doctor and Crusader specifically. Receiving this result means your target is either one of these roles.
    • If your target is attacked by a Bodyguard and survives (because they were healed by a Doctor), you will learn this fact, which proves that your target is a killer. You should generally out them for this immediately - doing so will both spare the Doctor the need to step forward (if they even realize they should do so), and will confirm you to them, while catching a likely-evil role.
  • While your bugging can be valuable, it is generally less powerful than your ability to see Mafia and Coven visits; additionally, it exposes you to getting killed by the Pestilence, Crusaders, the Veteran, the Ambusher, the Medusa, the Juggernaut, or (on Full Moon Nights) the Werewolf. For this reason, you might consider staying home when those roles are active, especially if you don't have any clear plan in terms of what you're checking for with your bugging.

Trivia[]

History[]

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